CHESSBD 2.0 ICS RELATED PROBLEMS AND BUGS ========================================= March 1995 This file contains information about bugs and deficiencies in CHESSBD, as well as some problems you might have. There are some outright bugs, and there are some anomalies i don't understand yet. If in your usage of CHESSBD you encounter anomalous behavior that is repeatable, please drop me a line (dfong@igc.apc.org). The program also has deficiencies. I welcome constructive criticism and suggestions. In no particular order: Q: My opponent's moves don't show up on the board, all i get is a bunch of ascii stuff in the control textport. A: You probably neglected to tell ICS to use style 12. Try this: right after you login to ICS, enter "style 12" in the control textport. Thereafter, your opponent's moves should appear automatically. Q: OK, i did style 12 already, how can i get rid of that stupid warning message when i log in? A: Just create an _ics.rc file. If there is one, CHESSBD will assume you put style 12 in it as necessary, and will no longer warn you to do style 12. Q: I lost on time when CHESSBD showed i had over a minute left! And my opponent's clock was running to boot!'' A: This appears to be a bug in the ICS protocol: if there is bad lag, it could transpire that your opponent already responded to your last move, but somehow the server's acknowledgement has not yet reached CHESSBD. Meanwhile, your opponent and the server think it is your move. Try this: after the game, ask your opponent what move s/he is on (according to this hypothesis, s/he will be one move ahead of what CHESSBD shows). If this hypothesis is correct, then complain to the admins. We need a better protocol. Q: I can't stand those stupid style 12 messages after every move! They clutter up the screen so the chats get lost. A: Try setting the variable icsrawout=0 in chessbd.ini . Q: The text is too tiny to be readable! A: You can change the font using the Options dialog from the main window menu bar. (NOT the ICS control window menu bar). Q: I can't figure out how to play WILD games. A: Sorry, CHESSBD does not currently support WILD games. Q: Why doesn't CHESSBD have a builtin command for XYZ? A: ICS has too many commands, and there is too little documentation about them, for me to provide GUI support for them all. And they're constantly adding new ones. So instead of providing wired-in support for my own favorite commands, CHESSBD provides a bank of 16 programmable buttons in the Arena dialog. You can setup a button to execute any ICS command. Q: I can connect to AICS, but not E-ICS. A: I can't connect to E-ICS either. I think it's because i'm using an old version of Trumpet. Other users have reportedly been able to successfully connect to E-ICS with this program. Q: How can i save my games to a file? A: CHESSBD automatically saves your games to the file "icsgames.pgn", as you play them. See also the online help for the "icssave" option variable. Q: OK, it wrote all my games out, but the CHESSBD reader choked on my 9th game! A: This may be a bug. At one point in time, there was a problem that apparently caused moves to be omitted from the gamesfile. I haven't seen this personally. If you can reproduce this behavior, please drop me a line. Also, ICS refresh and takebacks can make the saved games confusing when replayed. Edit the file to eliminate these artifacts. Q: I can't stand the click-and-drag way of moving pieces. A: Try setting the undocumented option variable dragmove=0 in your "chessbd.ini" file. Q: I hope you can find better looking pieces someday. A: I already did, thanks to nicok at IAEHV.nl . Copy the Outline settings from the distribution file "nicok.ini" into "chessbd.ini" . Q: The board is too tiny. The dialogs are too big. Etc.'' A: It is a lot of work to make things scalable. I don't have time. So as a compromise i provide 2 experimental setups, "bigscrn.ini" where the board is 25% larger, and "tinyscrn.ini" where the board is 20% smaller. If you want a smaller (larger) board, copy your current "chessbd.ini" to a temporary file --- so you won't lose your custom settings --- then copy "tinyscrn.ini" (bigscrn.ini) to "chessbd.ini" and merge your changes back in to "chessbd.ini". These alternate setups are experimental and not guaranteed to look good or even to work at all. At the very least, they are not as well tuned as the default setup. So it is generally better to use the defaults if you can. If you're a hacker feel free to tweak the alternate setups and see if you can improve them. ALSO: if you have borland's resource workshop you can probably enlarge the dialogs in the executable. (:-) Q: The gamesfile is called "icsgame.pgn" but it isn't in PGN format. A: That's true. If you really want PGN, you can quit ICS mode and read the file back in using the viewer features of CHESSBD. Or, you can turn on logging and use the ICS oldmoves command, then use one of the public domain converters on the logfile. Q: The textport locked up on me during a long session! When i tried to type something, it would just beep at me! A: I think i finally nailed that bug. If it happens again using the latest version (SLICS20h) please let me know. HINT: if it happens at an awkward moment and you want to keep running, click on the main textport (not the ICS control textport; the main textport is the one embedded in the main window) and enter the undocumented CHESSBD command "%icsreset" . this usually fixes the problem temporarily. (In the default chessbd.ini, i've bound one of the "Arena" buttons "%icsreset". The button is labelled "!BUG!". Q: Why can't i play through games files while i'm using ICS? A: You just can't. Many of the CHESSBD reader functions are either irrelevant or do not work in ICS mode. The ICS functions should probably be split off into a separate program, but it was less work to create the ICS functionality as an add-on rather than a whole new program. Q: Can i use SLICS through a raw serial connection? A: No, SLICS only works with Winsock. You might be able to use SLICS with TIA. Let me know if this works. Q: The helpfile sucks. A: Sorry, i don't have time to write a good one. I don't own WORD or any of the helpfile authoring tools either. Q: I already registered the beta release, SLICS20c. Do i have to re-register SLICS20h? A: No, if you already sent me $$ for SLICS20[a-z], you are entitled to free upgrades as long as i keep calling it SLICS20.